"Fill your paper with the breathings of your own heart." William Wordsworth

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Length Matters

I’m talking about chapters, of course. What did you think I meant? Really? Geez.

I’ll be blunt. I hate long chapters. When I read, I like to stop at a chapter break. I hate having to stop at some random paragraph because I don’t have time to finish the whole chapter. Then, when I return to it, I end up re-reading at least a page to get back into it. Good grief. #PettyReaderProblems

I take this into account when I write. I like short scenes and short chapters. If a scene gets long, I’ll split it.

(To give you an example, my book is 60 chapters, 286 pages. My first three chapters are only 15 pages combined. I’m going to assume this isn’t cause for concern. I’m not about to mess with chapter length on top of everything else!)

I think the main reason my scenes are naturally short is from my lack of description. I just don’t do it. I will rarely, if ever, describe the room my characters are in, unless there’s something worth telling or something that would be considered out of place or bizarre. Otherwise, a living room is a living room. You know what I mean? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this; it’s my writing style.

Describing characters has always been a challenge for me. Beyond eyes and hair. I got that down! Tyler’s hair is pretty much an additional character. I see my characters so clearly in my head, but that rarely transfers on the page. I didn’t even realize how blank my characters were until I was called out on it. To combat this, I scoured Pinterest for some pictures to stare at while I wrote. It was helpful to an extent. Give me dialogue any day. Sometimes I think I should just abandon novel writing for plays. Nothing but lines and some stage directions here and there. Yes.

Anyway, short chapters also help those with short attention spans, as I seem to have. Of course, there are plenty of variables, like the genre and topic of the scene itself. My novel has little use for any long, epic scenes. It’s not that kind of story. I think shorter scenes can pack a more powerful punch too. Short, sweet, and to the point, right? Maybe that’s why my blogs are short…except I rarely have a point.

This post in particular probably shouldn’t have even be written, let alone shared. Oh, well.

Readers should have the option. “Do I want to read another chapter? Maybe, maybe not.” Not, “OMG, how many more pages?”

But really, as a reader, it’s more of a time issue than anything else. I don’t dislike long chapters because they seem never-ending. It’s just, I got shit to do, you know?

*This was pretty mundane and all around unnecessary reading material. I apologize for that. I feel if I acknowledge how bad it is, that makes up for it somehow.